Paul Kemp

Re: Sony has lost over $3 billion on the PS3

Yes, the nature of product cycles will mean that, eventually, televisions which are in some way High Definition will become standard in the home. The SD panels of yesteryear will not last forever.

But will this alone secure Blu Ray's future? I have my doubts. It would have to come in to price alignment with SD-DVD, such that people who have the necessary hardware are left with the 'why not' argument to chew over. The problem is as you say, Blu Ray is a premium, luxury product at the moment. And like all commodities, when the economy turns south, they suffer - they cost more as a result of inflation and they are less attainable as the average punter has less wealth they can release.

Sony have to 'standardise' the format for it to become a success - huge gaps between SD-DVD and Blu Ray release dates inhibit this, as does price, as does their insistence of cataloging some of the most stupid films ever made onto Blu Ray (why bother!?).

It will for the time being remain an enthusiast's market. We can but hope it doesn't follow the same dull fate as SACD.

Carlo Medina

Re: Sony has lost over $3 billion on the PS3

People tend to forget exactly how hard it was for DVD to get mass acceptance. It was far from a sure thing. In 1997, most people had a 25"-32" direct view set, which did *not* readily show the difference between DVD and VHS/Broadcast unless it happened to have S-Video, which most did not. Component video would not be commonplace in consumer sets for several years.

Also, DVD had the huge--and those of us in the hobby back then will tell you how huge it was--hurdle known as "Those Darned Black Bars". While hobbyists understood the purpose of letterboxing, the mass market consumer saw it as losing 20-40% of their already small viewing screen.

And, only four of the seven big studios supported DVD at launch. I believe the last studio finally came on board in 1999, two years after DVD's launch. It was full studio support and larger screen sizes supporting component video [and some would argue the porn industry releasing DVDs] that really helped the format to take off.

So yes, while ideally studios would have loved for BD to be adopted more quickly than it has, in hindsight and in comparison to DVD it's doing fine in comparison.

As with DVD, the benefits of 1080p are evident with 40" or larger screen size, it is only a matter of time before the average household will have that size of TV. BD has already largely overcome the OAR hurdle, but it did have to combat with HD-DVD which no doubt slowed the acceptance rate of the format. But all studios are now on board, and the final spec has been established. This fiscal year (2008/9) will show if the format will grow into a viable alternative or fade away. The looming recession (is it looming or already here?) may skew the numbers down a bit, but overall if BD doesn't experience decent growth this FY, it may signify that it will be destined to be a niche format. Not that there's much wrong with that, LD did fine as a niche format. But I for one hope it succeeds so that I can enjoy my films in 1080p glory.

Paul Kemp

Re: Sony has lost over $3 billion on the PS3

This is again where comparisons become difficult because the nature of the domestic market here in Britain was somewhat different to how things operated in the states.

The black bars issue was very quickly overcome here by DVD players offering a 'pan & scan' option - filling a 4:3 screen with widescreen material. As far as the necessity of component inputs is concerned, in Europe we have the SCART system capable of transmitting RGB data (not component quality, but very close) and the comparisons between VHS and DVD were visible on even the smallest of screens as a result.

Similarly, the benefits of DVD were not exclusively quality related - although that was a big issue. Most people recall VHS getting chewed up on occasion by a faulty machine, problems with alignment between tape and 'heads', having to rewind and there being no instant access/chapter skipping. These were big logistical issues that people were tired off and DVD provided an effective alternative.

The same distinctions cannot be made between SD and Blu Ray. What are the chief problems with SD? They are almost exclusively quality related and haven't inspired complaint from all sectors of the consumer market. There are no 'logistical' difficulties with SD that Blu Ray overcomes.

I would like to think that quality will drive uptake, but I am not convinced it will happen. The quality of the film is and will remain the domineering factor, the other factors being somewhat 'incidental'. SACD didn't take off because it was creating engineering led solutions to problems that most people just weren't concerned with. Blu Ray may fail for broadly the same reasons.